Origin

The character 娘 combines the radical 女, which means "woman" or "female," with the component 良 on the right. The 良 component serves as a sound hint, suggesting roughly how the character should be pronounced in Chinese. Together, these parts create a character that specifically refers to a female child or daughter — the "female" element identifies the gender, while the sound hint helped speakers remember the pronunciation. Over time, this character became the standard way to write the word for daughter in Japanese and Chinese.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).